By Guest Blogger Carl Guardino
Humility is not a word often associated with Silicon Valley.
But it is a vital word to add to our vocabulary, if we are to revitalize our region.
This week, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group will release “Projections 2006: Daring to Compete – A Region-to-Region Reality Check.”
Much is written about the fierce global competition we face against competitors in India, China and other regions around the world. But are we even competitive with the 49 other states in the U.S?
In key criteria like housing, traffic, education, energy, the environment, health care and taxes, we will compare Silicon Valley to the seven other top tech regions in the United States. How do we really fare against Austin, Boston, Raleigh/Durham, Fairfax County VA, Seattle, Portland and San Diego?
Without sounding like an alarmist, the results are alarming.
Yet rather than ring our hands and whine about the “insurmountable obstacles” we face, what Silicon Valley citizens have always done best is work together to win.
It is in that collaborative spirit that I invite the readers of SanJoseInside.com to join us on Wednesday, September 21, for a morning-long “Laboratory of Learning” at the West Valley College Theater in Saratoga. From 8am to 12 Noon, we will release the results, hear from key public and private sector leaders about potential solutions, and then – with real-time computer polling – survey several hundred citizens about what we should be doing in each of the issue areas listed above to regain our competitive edge, improve our economy and enhance our quality of life.
To help shape the debate, we will be joined by such thoughtful leaders as Tom Campbell, State Senators Joe Simitian and Abel Maldonado, CalTrans Director Will Kempton, eLoan Founder Chris Larsen, Marimba and SpikeSource Founder Kim Polese, Stanford Hospital CEO Martha Marsh and many more. But the key participants are the 400 people in the Theater, investing in our Valley by weighing in with your ideas on initiatives and efforts we can collectively champion to recapture our competitive edge.
Yes, the results of “Daring To Compete” will appear sobering. But I believe we are at our best whn we see the roadblocks before us, and make the course corrections necessary to be successful..
To join us Wednesday, please visit our web site at http://www.svlg.net. If the low registration fee is a stumbling block, contact me directly and come as my guest. When it comes to sustaining Silicon Valley, we want your wisdom and words much more than we want your wallet.
Carl Guardino is President and CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.
Your attempt to reach out is late, but better late than not at all.
The results of the report should not be surprise anyone who has lived here for any length of time.You don’t have to be an expert to know the quality of life has deteriorated as we cram housing into every last inch of land, watch our transportation systems crumble due to lack of maintenance, breath foul air as our government continually attempts to weaken air quality standards, and the list goes on and on.
SVLG has never met a housing development it didn’t like, a tranportation expansion it didn’t support, or failing to speak out against an ethically challenged politician because they happen to be a champion of one of your pet projects.
And speaking of BART, how do you justify the massive cost if, in fact, traffic has really dropped and congestiion has eased? How many more taxes will you support?
Certainly we have great weather, and we can get to a lot of great places in a relatively short time, but day to day living has become unenjoyable. What are you going to do about that other than tell us what we already know????
Abel Maldonado? What? Is going to show us how to go back to our agricultural roots? Are you kidding me?
Silicon Valley doesn’t deserve to thrive because it’s a joke. There’s no downtown in Silicon Valley. San Jose’s is a dead disaster. There’s no downtown that’s vibrant and center of community. Seattle absolutely needs to be a high tech capital because it has a great downtown: a center that all people congregate and share imaginative ideas and entrepreneurship. Seattle is one place that I feel should thrive, not Silicon Valley unless it moves to San Francisco, which it might.
Just can’t seem to get it straight… who will largely benefit from BART to San Jose? I don’t see our citizenry commuting outside of San Jose to distant locations. Instead, I see folks living in those places commuting into the San Jose area. Sooooo, tell me, why should the burden of cost fall upon our shoulders and not the benefitting commuters? Or, perhaps, Carl and his association would like to pay the bill since they’ll benefit from an expanded pool of available employees.
The Silicon Valley ( Large Business / Politican ) Leadership Group ( the accurate title for your group ) has consistently excluded MOST key community organization, non profit, organized labor, small / neighborhood business, neighborhood association leaders and those politicans with different opinions or unfriendly to your group both directly and indirectly by not having them trully patrticipate in your “not really the public” discussion panels as was mentioned in Friday’s Blog discusion
http://sanjoseinside.com/sji/blog/entries/in_a_9_1_vote_council_pins_kick_me_sign_on_forrest_williams/
This is accomplished by not inviting them to participate, giving late notice, when you scheduling the time of day / weekday discussion, not publiclly publishing the study, high participation fees, as was stated in the comments.
You and your group have been consistently unwilling to have any REAL public policy debates with the many “other” community leaders and “other” politicans that have different opinions, well thought out recommendations and represent Silicon Valley residents and working people since they do not agree with many of your groups biased predetermined large business / friendly campaign supported politicians opinions and public policy recommendations.
Your statement that you welcome public participation is NOT accurate since a look at your panel participants indicates ONLY your friendly politicans and private sector large business leaders were asked to participate.
You are not fooling anyone
Your late offer to have people call you to participate in the audience if they can not afford the fee is insulting and a empty offer since you really do not want a true public debate.
Late participants will not have the oppportunity to actually discuss the issues and it is similar to the 2-3 minutes of public comments at our city council or board of supervisor’s “public ” discussions / meetings when the “deal is already done” prior to the public meeting
It is additionally insulting that you think we do not see through your method of controling the outcome of any “public discusion” by manipulating the participants and the “public” attendees.
At least have the honesty and integrity to admit what you are doing.
So let’s accurate label your “public discussion” for what it is –
– Silicon Valley’s ” Large Business and your Politicans ” Publicity Event of your predetermined opinions and recommendations
– NOT a real Santa Clara County / Northern California community leader’s Public discussion.
When will you and your group have a REAL community public policy DEBATE and DISCUSSION on a future day / time when the entire community not just your hand picked panel and where the majority of the public is excluded? Probably NEVER.
Are you and your group afraid of the results of a true Santa Clara County community wide public policy discussion?
The Mercury News should be embarrassed and loses public credibility when they publicly state and sponsor this as a public discussion when it is only a large business lobbying group publicity event.
Detroit once led the nation in manufacturing—San Jose just passed Detroit and became the 10th largest city in the U.S.
It’s ironic because Detroit’s leaders failed to recognize the economic challenges they faced and they arrogantly pursued policies that contributed to their decline as a city.
Carl, it seems, has learned from the past and is rallying the troops to act before it is too late. But acknowledging the problem is only the beginning. Solutions must be found and bold implementation must quickly follow if we are to maintain our competitive edge.
Whether it is housing, transportation, energy or education we have the best minds and adequate resources to provide solutions. But we are mired in bureaucracy and many of our leaders reflect the arrogant attitudes that once permeated the City of Detroit.
But we don’t have to change as survival is not mandatory.—(note: this is not an original quote, but I can’t recall who said it.)
One of the key points in your report relates to this area’s high taxes compared to other areas of the country. Yet the SVLG is backing a 30-year, quarter cent sales tax increase to fund a BART expansion that does not bring transit to where most of Silicon Valley lives or works.
Perhaps Mr. Guardino can tell us how many opponents of the BART extension will be appearing on his panel? This typically one-sided, stacked deck does not speak well of the “collaborative spirit” of this “debate.”
To his credit however, I’m somewhat surprised to see Carl’s blog appear in this particular sand box. Maybe next time he puts together a panel he might be inclined to include dissenting views. It could lead to a true “collaborative spirit” on some of these vexing local issues.
Transportation.
Studies show that SJ lightrail is at the bottom of the veritable barrel in terms of ridership and the percentage of operating costs that are subsidized by taxpayers.
So the valley will become more competitive by:
– extending a failed lightrail system that is already a drain on the tax base
– foisting an even bigger drain on SJ taxpayers in the form of BART
hmmm.
Housing.
I don’t think much can be done about housing unless we convert all the unused office space into dorms/lofts.
But come to think about it, a lot of geeks in the valley would jump at the chance to domicile with their high speed networks and server farms!
Habitat for Hightech-noids? (Just half kidding)
Schools.
The continuous hue and cry is that schools aren’t teaching our kids the math and science that our kids will be need to be competitive. Where else in the US could you possilbly find more engineers and scientists?
I don’t think there’s any shortage of humanitarian minded companies in the valley that would gladly participate in such a program.
I’m always amazed at the lack of partnerships between the private sector and public sector in this valley.
I hadn’t realized that planning and economic development was like a game of football. So why should we be so nervous if India, China, and other regions of the world make positive strides in their own economic development? Leadership isn’t a matter of “winner takes all” Carl. Try and focus more on quality of life, worker satisfaction, freedom to innovate, and improving the status of all segments of society rather than beating your chest – and amazingly all your wealthy backers will do well.
Where are the other community representatives in your public discussion that would result in a balanced public policy discussion that the Mercury News article suggests it to be by their sponsorship?
If you limit your panel participants to only business leaders and politicians that support your business group’s viewpoints how is your event anything other that another special interest group discussion with the group’s supporters?
Many local government public policies have never been actually widely discussed in non partisan public policy discussion forums with all viewpoints represented.
Almost all local pubic policy discussions are put on by groups like yours that have already expressed their special interest viewpoints and could be considered by the public not be a fair and balanced discussion.
There is wide spread belief that many public policies if voted on by local residents would be defeated since they have not been widely discussed in non partisan forums, the short / long term consequents are not well understood or agreed on by the majority of the community.
It does not encourage a true public policy discussion when it is held at a time / day when many can not participate and a high admission fee to participate is charged which many local excluded leaders and organizations question if it is worth paying to participate since you have organized this event to limit balanced participation and public discussion.
Do you really want a non partisan balanced public policy discussion or is this just a special interest group publicity event of your viewpoints and recommendations supported by the Mercury News?
#5. Got any ideas how Silicon Valley can offer housing prices comparable to Raleigh-Durham?
I’m not talking about a 900 sq. foot condo on the VTA line, I’m talking about 4 bedrooms on a quarter acre lot for around $250k.
While I’m not a fan of local politics, the issue may not be political arrogance so much as economic forces beyond their control.
I wish the participants of the SVLG forum well, but I suspect it’s going to be the usual hot air, generating reports that nobody really reads suggesting actions that do not solve any problems.
The kicker: by this time next year the median home price in Santa Clara County will be up around $800k.
If they really want some Leadership, they’ve got to be willing to allow new ideas…not just the same old BS from the same old players. But, alas, Silicon Valley is no longer wired that way.
In sponsoring Wednesday’s community forum, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG) is once again taking the initiative to move the Valley’s body politic beyond unrealistic discourse by generating some very real solutions for our area’s very real problems.
I have never found the SVLG to resist alternative viewpoints when it comes to solving our region’s transportation, housing, education or energy problems. Kudos to Carl Guardino – and all the sponsors of Projections 2006 – for moving the debate beyond political slogans and for inspiring our region’s best and brightest to start fixing what seems to be going wrong.
#5,
On your point that this is too little, too late. To be fair, I just want to point out that we did receive this for publication last week, but considered the Chuck Reed blog the most timely and held this until Monday because that’s when we run guest blogs.
RE: #11. My bad…it was directed at #6, not 5.
It takes a man’s impossible dreams to beat another men’s nightmares.
The answer is not on how may problem we have but in how many solutions we can find.
Evaristo Guerrero II
Let me be your Friend
The $50.00 fee is to discourage the gadflies who would attend a freebie. Is that us? HHmm.
In reality a $15.00 fee would discourage the gadflies. Hell, Safeway and others struck impotently for months last year because the new contract proposal would have required them to pay a $15.00 co-pay for the mostly useless doctors office visists they scheduled because it was free. No-one wants to pay for their own health care any more out of their own pocket, so why would they pay any fee just to mouth off?
But they really didn’t have to charge a fee at all, because the workday hours would automatically exclude most, since many of us actually have to show up at work to make money, unlike Carl G. and the CEO types he may want to lure to this event. At the end of the day a slick press release will announce the findings of this “diverse???” group who attended during the workday @ $50.00 per. RIGHT!
Get a clue on this Carl—if you want across the board participation, scheduling during work hours just ain’t right. Its like Gonzo scheduling a hugely important issue for “public comment” during the day on Tuesday. If you want a big circle jerk of like-minded people to pat each other on the back collectively, schedule it as you did, and charge a hefty fee. If you want a true cross-section (including a few pesky gadflies) then reschedule and drop the fee. Just charge a nominal amount for the coffee and snacks.
And ya know, Carl, the new name is really lame—just a lot of self-aggrandizement. True leaders don’t have to self-proclaim. You and the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group have done a lot of forward thinking work. Rethink the name change.